Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of the Newgate drama--_Jack Sheppard_ and _Madame Lafarge_.[30] Of the latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with _The Beggar's Opera_, which is defended as being "real satire and not wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy _Martinuzzi_ comes in for frequent ridicule, though the chief _rôles_ were taken by Phelps and Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's "petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met with _Punch's_ support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his signature of "Q" then develops the argument:-- Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness, the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience. There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington. The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their _Jack Sheppards_, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of knowing that their _Jack Sheppard_ has been licensed by a Deputy, for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of Tyburn are exhibited with a _cum privilegio_. Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We _hope_ it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of the English stage. [Footnote 30: Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse). After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died in 1852.] [Sidenote: _Lord Mahon's Petition_]